precipitate
by PreludeInZ
Summary: Sometimes brothers have some fights. Rated T for language.
1. thunderhead

Out of his uniform, showered, and back into his civvies, Alan's flat on his back on the floor of his room. He's made himself comfortable with the electric guitar that usually hangs on his wall lying on his stomach instead, humming quietly while he twangs his way through meaningless little tunes. Decompressing. He's winding down from a long day before Grandma calls him down for dinner, potentially about to doze off, when a custom alert he's got set up pings off his comm.

"Thunderbird 5, Space Elevator docking," is announced in a cool, artificial tone from the speaker system over on his desk, and Alan puts his guitar aside, rolls over onto his elbows, looks at the icon hovering above the comm to make sure he's not hearing things. John's on the ground. He's not due to be off-rotation for another two weeks, but sometimes he shuffles his schedule around. Alan grins to himself and clambers to his feet, intent on going to welcome his brother home.

Gordon's on the other side of the door when Alan pulls it open, and Alan nearly runs into him. "Hey! John's down, huh? I just got the call, you wanna come and—"

"Al, uh, actually." Gordon's a little pale, looks a little spooked. "I was gonna say, you maybe wanna park it in your room for a while? Just chill out, give John some space. No pun intended."

Alan blinks at him. "What, why? He okay?" He glances over his shoulder at the hovering hologram, the little symbol that announces that the space elevator's docked. It's benign, benevolent green, not the glaring red of an emergency descent, or the yellow that demands technical assistance.

Gordon shifts, uncomfortable, and shakes his head. "I think he and Scott are gonna get into it. Uh. You know, about today."

"Huh? What about today? Today was fine. Me and Scott were great! Man, I know our comms got cut off and John gets antsy, but—"

Gordon's four years older than Alan, but sometimes it seems like less. Sometimes it seems like a _lot_ less, like they're both still kids. Gordon's a drinking, driving, voting adult, and Alan's none of those things, but with his hands stuffed in his pockets and chewing his lower lip, Gordon looks nervous the way adults aren't supposed to. "Comms didn't get cut off. Scott shut 'em down. The mission data from TB3 got uploaded for review and John got into it, and…oh, man. He's on the warpath."

The novelty of it, the connection between the concept of John and the concept of anger, that's almost enough to get Alan curious. John doesn't get _mad_. Alan's still a little thrown off by the fact that Gordon's being _weird_ about it, and goes in for the joke, "Ding ding ding, round 1! Right? You and Virgil are always—"

"This isn't like me and Virgil," Gordon interrupts sharply, and shakes his head. "God, Al, I mean it. John is just really, _really_ fucking angry. Trust me, you really don't wanna be anywhere near this. This is gonna be—this is like Mom and Dad."

Alan laughs at that, but then realizes he's not supposed to, realizes he doesn't know what Gordon means. For a moment he stops trying to figure out what's funny about this, because it's starting to seem like maybe nothing. "…Mom and Dad used to fight?"

Gordon laughs now, faint and strained and not at all funny. "Yeah. Not a lot. Only when it mattered. Hopefully they both just need to get it out of their systems. Probably it won't be too bad. Maybe." He shrugs awkwardly and looks miserable. "If you hear anything, just try not to listen, neither of them'd want you to know the kind of stuff they say when the gloves come off. So just, uh, try not to worry about it and just hang out here for a bit. Okay?"

The second youngest, oddly enough, tends to have the most success in getting Alan to do anything, mostly because he so rarely _asks_ Alan to do anything. And it's starting to seem like it might be important. "Sure, Gordon. Okay."

Relief writes itself on Gordon's features and he nods, grins a bit feebly. "Yeah. It'll all blow over. And look, this isn't—it's not anything to do with you, got me? Whatever happened today, none of it's on _you_. So John's not—and Scott isn't either— _neither_ of them are mad at you, okay? Remember that. I'll come get you when they're through, but like—I dunno, do your homework or something. I gotta go."

Gordon doesn't look like he wants to go.

In fact, he stays long enough for Alan to ask, "Why've you gotta go?"

"Al, believe me, if it wasn't the right thing to do, I would be cramming myself under your bed right now. No room under mine, it's all packed with my spare scuba kit. But—no, I dunno. I should know what gets said. And Virgil's gonna need help breaking them up, if it comes to it." He shakes his head, sighs heavily, and now he looks older than his years. "This is gonna be _bad_ ," he adds, softly, almost to himself, and then, " _Please_ keep out of it, Al."

Anxious in his own right and starting to get worried about what he'd thought had been a pretty smooth mission, Alan nods and says again, "Yeah, Gordon. I will."

* * *

Virgil's doing Scott's post-flight checks when the space elevator hits the island's airspace. He glances up, and while he doesn't exactly hurry through the rest of them, he definitely stops dawdling. Scott had already been running through the checklist Alan's behalf, but Virgil had told him to hit the showers, that he'd take care of it. Virgil's mostly doing Scott's (Alan's) post-flight checks to be quite sure that Scott isn't in the hangar at the same time that John is, because the hangar is filled with blunt, heavy objects, plasma torches, and all manner of other implements of potential violence. It's not to say any of them would be employed, necessarily, but the temptation would exist, and better safe than sorry. That's Virgil's motto, anyway.

He's signing off on the last of it, just as John's docking procedures wrap up, and there's the pneumatic hiss of the pressurized capsule opening. The footsteps on the stairs down to the hangar floor are heavier, hit harder than they should, a storm descending all the way from orbit.

Virgil's waiting at the bottom when John reaches the hangar floor, and he holds his hands up, preemptively defensive. When John's angry, it tells on his face. In anger, Gordon and Virgil both share the quality of simmering away beneath a relatively neutral surface and then boiling up only when provoked. They both tend to calm themselves down, as often as not, and calm each other down when they don't. Scott adopts a sneer and a tone of voice that drips sarcasm and contempt like hot, thick tar, but he wields their father's _not-mad-just-disappointed_ tone equally as well, and just as often. Alan's too young still for anything but a sullen pout, real displays of temper out of Alan still look like tantrums.

John's got a long fuse. Possibly it's the longest fuse of anyone Virgil's ever met, because what's set him off here and now has been sizzling along the length of John's temper for _years_. There are flickers and sparks and flashes of irritation. Occasionally John's frustrated, testy, irate. But he's rarely _angry_. And right now he's _furious_.

So with Virgil's hand butted up against his chest, there's a hiss of breath and then, dark and commanding, " _Move_."

"I will. Look, we all knew this was coming, and it's time to clear the air. Fine. But you need to promise not to actually _do_ anything until you've slept on it. Okay, John?"

"Someone has to do _something_."

Virgil nods, but his answer rides the line, " _Maybe_. But you're in no state to make a rational decision and you know it, so I want your word, Johnny. Say whatever you want, but don't _do_ anything that you can't take back. Okay?"

John's got four inches of height on his closest brother, narrow and rangy. John's the only member of the family to rival Scott's height and though it's a pair of bright green eyes glowering down at him, it's still Scott Virgil's reminded of. With his hand against John's chest, the elder is a trip wire, drawn taut, about to go off. "I'll do what I have to."

"After twelve hours and another long talk, you can do what you want. Anything before then and I'm gonna sit on you. So you gimme your word, John, we clear?"

" _Fine_."

"Fine, what?"

This is getting dangerous, and it's plain in the way John's jaw clenches the way his hands tense into fists at his sides. " _Fine_ , nothing drastic for twelve hours."

"Okay. Good. Thank you."

"Now _move_."

Virgil, aware of the way the wind's blowing, stands aside, and John takes his thunderhead with him, leaves a void of silence in his wake.


	2. deluge

Scott's waiting when that invisible, imaginary bell rings. The one Alan had mimicked, the one that marks the start of the first round. He's sitting in the lounge, changed out of his uniform and casual to all outward appearances, and when John arrives at the top of the stairs, he stands up, conciliatory. "Hi, John."

John towers at the top of the stairs, tall and righteous and still in deep, heavenly blue. His hair is lightly tousled and his hands are still in fists at his sides, but his voice is cold steel when he answers, "Don't you _dare_."

Scott's hands go up, protesting his innocence. "John, I haven't _said_ anything. Look, I understand if you're angry. But we don't need to—"

Angry is only the very beginning of what John is, and the crucial fact of John's anger, the razor sharp edge to it—when things have gone far enough that _John's_ angry, then John has damn good reason to be. "You cut all comms. The middle of a rescue, far side of Mars, and you cut off all communication. There's no excuse for that."

It's further infuriating how cool Scott can be under fire, how unperturbed he is by his brother and his towering fury. "Well, that's because it doesn't need excusing. You were micromanaging. Alan and I had it under control. We did the supply drop, we got out of orbit, we made our way back. I admit I was blunt about it, but there's no need to—"

John's staring now, like he doesn't quite believe what Scott's saying. "You told him to _go dark_. I lost every goddamn status signal from TB3, I had to route to readouts from the surface, I had to patch into the Martian satellite network—which consists of maybe _three_ satellites and a third of a space station—in orbit above Mars. Just to be sure you hadn't _crashed_."

Scott remains the cooler head, and he sits back down. "You knew we hadn't," he answers pointedly. "It was a simple supply drop for a colony that got cut off by dust storms. Easy. Nothing to worry about. I needed Alan to concentrate. You were fretting in his ear about all kinds of nonsense and it wasn't helping get the job done. We lose comms all the time, we manage. Think of it like a training exercise."

"Don't you talk down to me, don't you _dare_ ," John snarls in answer. "Not when you put our youngest brother's damn _life_ on the line because you're reckless and impatient. There's _no excuse_ , Scott."

Behind him, though neither John nor Scott are aware, Virgil and Gordon are sitting on the stairs down from the lounge, just listening. Twenty-four and twenty-one, respectively, but it doesn't matter. They're both kids again, listening to the grown-ups argue, wide-eyed and more nervous than they want to admit.

Scott shrugs. "Fine. I'm sorry you got upset, maybe I was out of line. We'd had a long flight out and I just wanted to get it over and done with. Alan had it under control, though. You really need to learn to put more faith in him, John, he's a hell of a pilot, and he's growing up fast. He's never going to reach his full-potential with you in his ear, second-guessing his every instinct."

This works on Gordon. It works on Virgil. It's never needed to work on Alan, because Alan does what Scott says, takes what the eldest says at face value. Sometimes, it's the right thing to say. Sometimes Scott argues with people who really need to step back and think about what they're saying, and the arguments on both sides are better for it.

But it doesn't work on John, who's starting to get tunnel vision, knuckles white beneath his gloves. "This isn't about anything _I've_ done," he hisses, and there are bright spots of colour on his high cheekbones, flushed red and hot. John's never angry, except when he really, _really_ is. "This isn't about me getting _upset_ , you haven't _upset me_."

"From where I'm sitting, you seem pretty upset," Scott observes mildly, and then repeats his apology, "And I'm sorry about that, John, honestly. I didn't think it through, and I apologize."

"I don't want your damn apology, I want you to _listen to me_. Every time you're out with Alan, it's a _nightmare_. You flout protocol. You break every regulation in the book, you don't act like an astronaut, you act like it's a goddamn airshow. You _can't_. He can't learn that from you, it's unacceptable."

Scott just arches an eyebrow at this. For all that John's the one with balled up fists and fire in his chest, Scott's the one with the balance of power, calm and cool and unruffled. Still, he's the older brother by four years, and the head of the family by default. So when he sighs and puts on The Dad Voice, it's a power play. "Listen, Johnny, you're not a pilot. This is how Dad trained me, you just—you have to put everything out there. There's no such thing as training wings. It was a controlled risk. You were nattering on about radio interference, all while Alan needed to _focus_. Due respect, John, you don't know what you're talking about."

Scott got their father's voice, all cool reason and rationality. Jeff Tracy wasn't a tyrant. He was a reasonable man who did rational things, and only ever asked that the people he argued with try to be reasonable in turn. John got their mother's voice. In Lucille's voice, her words were _law_ , and god help the disobedient, because if _Mom_ was mad, then you were _really_ in trouble. John echoes their mother, all righteous anger, "If you ever pull anything like that again while you're riding shotgun with Alan, then I'm getting your Space Operations License revoked. You're a hazard and he's not going to benefit from learning _your_ bad habits. There's no margin of error in space, there's no rip-cord, no eject-button. You rely on every resource you have, and you _do not_ cowboy around. _Ever_. No more of your bullshit, Scott, I _mean it_."

Well. That gets Scott on his feet, and darkens his tone from patient bluster, tolerance of his brother's histrionics, into a serious challenge.

Frowning at John, as though he doesn't believe what he's heard so far, "You're not threatening me."

This is a threat.

John's not threatened. "I'm giving you one more chance than I'd give any screw-up civilian outfit. You don't belong in space. You're not properly trained for it, _you_ don't know what you're talking about. You got your SOL clearance on a technicality, because TB1's done enough flight hours at the edge of the atmosphere to qualify."

Scott's gone poker straight, stiffened right up the spine. He's gone a little bit cold at the fact that John's making a dig at his credentials. "You're out of line, and you need to calm down."

"I'm _always fucking calm_ , I'm a _fucking astronaut_."

John's almost as tall as Scott is, and he closes the distance between them in a handful of long, swift strides. A gloved finger hits his brother in the collarbone, and he's _right_ in Scott's face. Nobody gets in Scott's face, because Scott's face is a few inches out of most people's range. " _You_ are the one with the fuck-ups. You're the one who overcommits, you're the one who rushes in, you're the one who makes the stupid calls. When you go out with Virgil, he's not your backup, he's your _keeper_. South Africa? You'd be dead. Fireflash? Kayo and two hundred people _would be dead_. You ride the line when you're in One; you're a goddamn liability in Three. When you hit orbit, _you're_ the amateur, Scott, and you better learn your damn place."

 _Now_ Scott's off-kilter, and he loses ground, takes a literal step back. Scott resolves arguments by taking control of arguments, but he's lost control of this one, and his own temper starts to flare. "I suppose you think _you_ can train Alan?" he asks, snide and attempting a shot at the fact that John's never been a pilot. "You've _never_ been in the same league as the rest of us, you're _dispatch_. Watch your mouth, John, you're crossing a line."

This doesn't land. John just steps back and all the fury flowing through him has cooled to contempt, hardened into armor against anything Scott could throw at him. "Alan's a better pilot," he pronounces, "than _you_ deserve to train."

It's the last thing he says. He turns on his heel and leaves his elder brother staring after him, as he stalks past Gordon and Virgil, drawn to the top of the stairs.


	3. thunderstruck

It's the way Scott laughs that makes Virgil's stomach feel twisted and queasy. The way he looks towards the top of the stairs with a shrug and a sort of half-grin, like he expects Virgil to laugh right back. "Sounds like _someone's_ let his spacesuit get too tight," he says, and drops back down onto the couch.

And what manifests as searing anger in John is heavy, black dread in Virgil. He doesn't smile back, and crosses the room to Dad's desk, pretends that there's something he needs from the bare desktop. Really he just needs to channel their father, and maybe proximity to the place where their dad should be will help him, somehow. Virgil's hands trace the long lines of the desk's surface as Scott continues, utterly unabashed. "He's been up for a long while, though, guess I don't blame him getting a little hot under the collar. That's the thing with John, Virgil, he just blows up sometimes and–"

"No," Virgil interrupts, and knows he doesn't sound like any kind of authority. They all have a "work voice". Even Alan's voice deepens and grows strict, decisive, when he's on the clock. He hasn't quite grown into it yet, he still sounds boyish, but there's a definite shift in tone that they all know how to listen for. Still, it's Virgil's voice, not _Thunderbird 2's_ that continues, "Scott, it's not 'the thing with John'. Jesus. Did we both just listen to the same conversation?"

Scott scoffs, "Oh, right, if you want to call him coming out of orbit to rant like a lunatic a _conversation_. Yeah, sure." He sighs and kicks his feet up on the table. There's a holopad on the couch beside him and he reaches for it, pulls up mission reports for the past cycle. "Honestly, Virgil, it's just stress getting to him. Let him get a bit of a break, he'll be more reasonable in the morning. I'll give him a wide berth 'til he cools off."

Virgil's not sure what he'd expected. John's tactics tend to scorch the earth where he lands his arguments, but Virgil hadn't expected to rake the surface over and find nothing changed underneath. He swallows and reluctantly tags in for round two. "Do you think it's anything I haven't heard from him before?""

This gets a swivel of Scott's head and an arch of a heavy eyebrow. "Sorry, what? Is that supposed to mean he's been mouthing off behind my back, because if he's been waiting to say something to my _face_ —"

It's John's temper that makes Virgil nervous. He's used to Scott's. Scott's all bluster and frustration, he flares up at every other snag and snarl. John only gets angry when anger is warranted, and the fact that John's reached that point—Virgil shakes his head. "He _did_ just say it all to your face. And you're blowing it all off like it didn't mean anything."

Scott rolls his eyes, looks back at his display. "If he's got a complaint, he can make it civilly. It's been a long day and I'm not in the mood for temper tantrums."

It's not fair. It's not right that Virgil's the one who has to drive all John's points home, because they're all sharp as nails and aimed at all of Scott's weakest parts. But Scott's upstairs and John's downstairs, and Virgil's the one caught between them. With the hammer.

"Well, I heard what he said. And I've heard it all before. And he's _not wrong_ , Scott."

"Oh, are you gonna pile on now, too?"

There's a sigh and a roll of Scott's eyes and it's just—something doesn't track. Virgil's the very soul of empathy, his personal mandate has always been understanding and mediating between the rest of his brothers. But now both of them have it from the highest authority—literally the highest authority—that the way Scott does things needs to change. Lacking their father—more accurately, lacking their _mother_ —someone just needs to be the go-between, the buffer for high-emotion and the things that get said in moments of temper. It's nothing Virgil hasn't heard before, but it's also nothing Virgil hasn't _said_ before, albeit not with John's blistering rhetoric.

Still, he's stifling frustration when he says, "I'm not _piling on_. Did you—just—God, Scott. Repeat back one damn thing he said. Were you listening?"

Scott's focused a little too intently on the mission reports on the display in his lap. They're not current, Virgil can read the dates from where he stands. Months old. Just something Scott's busying himself with. It's the empathy that makes this hard, makes that black dread swell up and adhere to his insides when Scott scoffs, offhanded and apparently indifferent, "Standard temper tantrum, really. He went off about getting my SOL revoked, as though he'd have the guts to—"

The worst of it is, Virgil knows Scott. And he knows John. And he knows that Scott knows John better than _this_ , so the willful ignorance is what's most damning. "Scott, _he'll do it_. I had to make him promise he wouldn't actually take any kind of action when he hit the ground, because you _know_ John doesn't let things like this lie. Come on, are you hearing yourself? It's _John_. And John doesn't screw around with this kinda thing." Virgil's not sure what to do with his hands, wishes he had something of his own to fiddle with while he's trying to make this point. Wishes Scott would look up and make eye-contact. At least put them on an equal footing. "I know John isn't—I mean, Scott, I see your side of this, honestly, I do. He's not a pilot, he's not in the field, and most of the time he knows when to respect our judgment. But I think you've crossed a line here, Scott and—"

"Oh, _I_ crossed a line, did I?" Scott flares up, and it's clear he's been waiting to. He puts the tablet he's been using aside and _now_ Virgil has his attention, blue eyes glaring across the room. "All his backtalk and insubordination, going at me like this is a goddamn locker room after a _game_ , when it's _his_ insecurity that—"

They all have a work voice. It's as subtle and modulated an instrument as any they use. John's is exquisite, all tight, precise control, steady and as easy to hear as it is to listen to. If you need technical information rattled off with accuracy, it's John you want in your ear. If you need someone who's _always_ calm, you want John. Gordon, surprisingly, is probably the runner up, at least as far as sheer range and complexity of his voice relative to a given situation. If you need someone to make a frightened child (or adult) laugh, put Gordon on the line. He'll drop whatever he's doing to make the call, even if he has to be patched in from the other side of the world.

On the job, Scott's voice is pure command, the sort of voice you follow without thinking. It's a quality either inherited or emulated from their father. It's maybe the most dangerous thing about him.

Virgil didn't get command. Virgil just got _volume_ , courtesy of his grandfather, lungs like bellows. He's not even mad, just _loud_ when the answer bursts up out of him, "It's not _John_ , Scott! Chrissakes, it's _you_."

Well. That was loud enough that the whole house probably heard. Virgil cringes inwardly, but outwardly he folds his arms and hardens his jaw and glowers right back at his older brother. Because if _he_ doesn't do something, then John _will_.

So he continues, before Scott can get a word in, though he seems a little too thunderstruck to say anything. "It's _you_. It's been you for _years_ , and it's more than just when you're in Three. It's—it's the way you do this job, like it's all guts and glory and thrilling heroics. It's going to your head or something, I don't know. But we have to talk and you _have to listen_ , or you're gonna get yourself—or one of _us_ killed. John doesn't trust you anymore and in a lot of ways he's right not to. _That's the line_. You're on the wrong side of it."


	4. run-off

Virgil's handling Scott, so Gordon's landed with John. It takes a lot to set John off, but once he's burning, he burns until he's got nothing left.

Gordon's standing at the end of the pool's far lane with a stopwatch and a towel hanging around his shoulders, watching. John's got the right build, but he's a long time out of practice, and his form is terrible. He wastes a lot of energy.

Good.

Except, for all that zero-g and water can be compared, they _can't_ , actually. John's faster than Gordon expects him to be, and he hits the wall with a slap of an open palm on the upper edge, with time to spare before he's due to start another lap. Gordon crouches, cautious, and queries, "Still mad?"

John's out of breath and this is the space he's supposed to use to get it back, but he doesn't. The redhead's still snarling and spitting pool water as he answers, picking up from the middle of a thought he's clearly been wrangling, "— _do_ that, 'cuz it teaches—teaches'm." A cough, and then a wasted deep breath, and then forcefully, "—not to _listen to me_. In _space_. He can't _teach_ him that, the stupid son of a—"

Gordon's pulled a whistle out of the collar of his shirt and he gives it a little tweet, sets John off again. At the end of the pool, in the next lane over, Gordon dangles his ankles idly in the water and wonders about how Virgil's faring with the eldest.

Not his problem. Aggressively not his problem, his problem is John, and when John's angry, he's best managed in short little bursts until he's worked himself out of it.

Apparently this takes a while. Gordon squints out over the pool towards the sun dipping towards the horizon, and hopes that they're back inside before it starts to get dark. He hopes this is helping. He hadn't been able to think of anything else, anything except what helps _him_ calm down, when faced with his pacing, growling, wildcat of an older brother, cornered in the kitchen.

Eventually, hopefully, John just won't be able to _think_ hard enough to stay mad. In theory. Gordon hopes. There's a rhythm his body'll hit, the patterns of breathing, the coordination of his long limbs and the stripping away of thought in favour of concentration—Gordon can't imagine how it _wouldn't_ help. Plainly John needs a bit of help.

Six years between them, there's a lot Gordon doesn't know about John. But he's empathetic and intuitive and there'd been a moment between them in the kitchen after John had stormed downstairs. Breathing too hard and with his collar loosened and a just emptied water glass in his hand, Gordon had seen a flicker of vulnerability. At the center of a towering column of fire, there'd been the shadow of doubt. Of awful, real fear, the thing that John's afraid of. Of not being in control.

Seconds later the glass had been flung across the room, shattered against the wall, and John had grabbed at the back of one of the chairs, shoved it out of the way to drop onto his elbows, leaning against the tabletop, burying his fingers in his hair and practically seizing up with the effort it took to get a hold of his temper.

John's back again with a whole quarter of a minute to spare, before the timer ticks over and he's due to start another lap. This time he takes a precious few seconds, deep breaths. His pale skin's flushed, patchy with exertion. Gordon hopes as an afterthought that the sun is low enough not to have given the redhead a sunburn, but it's too late now.

And it's John with the question this time, still breathing hard and clipping his words, shortening his diction down the way John almost never does. _Really_ out of breath. "D'you understand why it's…why he can't _do_ that? Gordon? D'you get it?"

Gordon's not sure. But there's no way in hell he's giving John anything to argue with. "Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I gotcha, Johnny. You starting to cool down?"

"Dunno. Gotta go."

He doesn't wait for the whistle and kicks off again, and Gordon lets him take two, three laps uninterrupted, before he engages again. That last one definitely clocked in slower than the others. John's flagging, and Gordon's starting to worry about pushing him too hard, too soon out of orbit. When his brother latches onto the wall again, Gordon can tell his edge has dulled. He pulls the whistle off, sets it at the edge of the pool with the stopwatch, a tacit signal that he's not gonna set John off again.

John seems to take the hint that he should probably stop and he clings onto the wall for a little longer, long enough for Gordon to scoot a little closer, with his legs pulled up to his chest and a hand rubbing through his hair. He squints at the setting sun again and then asks, tentative, "Did you really mean all that? All the stuff you said to Scott?"

There's a long silence and John finally lets go, drifts away from the wall and just permits himself to float, loose and limber in the water, worn out. "Every damn word," he answers, but his eyes are closed and there's no more fire in him.

Gordon shivers a little against the slowly falling chill of early evening. Somehow, without the anger as an excuse, it's worse to hear John confirm that he meant what he said, because none of what he said was good.

But then, proof that the anger's worn away and there's something kinder, gentler beneath it—something that he and John have deeply in common. "I'm sorry, Gordon. For getting mad. I know you hate it. I do too."

"Is it as bad as it sounds?"

"You heard it and you know I meant it. You're old enough to have an opinion of your own." There's a splash, John's vertical again, and he pulls himself to the edge of the pool, hauls himself out of the water. Gordon hands over the towel he's carrying and listens to his brother, finally getting his breath back. "Tell you what. I'm starving and I'm starting to wonder about your opinion. So you feed me, and I'll listen. I've said everything I wanted to say."


	5. downpour

Scott's not sure he's ever made Alan cry.

He certainly hopes not. There's something about Alan—something so bright and wholehearted and good—it's more than just an eldest brother wanting the best for the youngest. It's the fact that anything that could put a damper on someone like Alan must be heavy and dark in the worst sort of way.

But Alan's definitely in tears when he runs into Scott, practically bowls him over on the stairs down from the bedrooms. It's the sort of red-faced, wet-eyed, undeniable state of pure heartbreak that puts Scott's stomach in a knot as he catches the youngest by the shoulders. "Alan, _whoa_. What—Jesus, Al, sit down a second, what happened? What's wrong?"

It's bad enough that Alan's not even interested in pretending he's not utterly in pieces, and there are hiccuping, sniffling sobs as he sinks to sit on the staircase and bury his face in his hands. Baffled and bad at this, Scott sits down next to him and rubs his little brother's trembling back until the answer finds its way out, barely more than a whisper, "Talked t'John. Mission log. I made…m-made…a lot of mistakes."

The knot in Scott's stomach turns into a core of pure, molten fury, ready to go nuclear. His voice is still steady, even as he says, "No, you didn't. Christ, Alan. He's mad at _me_ , he can't take it out on you, that's— _fuck_. What the hell's he gone and—"

"He's _right_ , though." Alan cuts him off, and swipes his shirt-sleeve across his nose, palms the tears out of his eyes. "He wasn't mad. He was nice, even, j-just…said we had to talk it over; d-debrief. I did a lot wrong, I _do_ a lot wrong, and—"

"Go find Gordon," Scott interrupts, though the arm he's wrapped around Alan's shoulders pulls him tight into a sort of half-hug. "Don't cry, Al, come on, it's not worth that. John's just—" There are a lot of words, in Scott's considered opinion, for what John's done, but none of them are the sort of language he'd want repeated in front of his baby brother. So he holds his tongue, and says, "I'll talk to him."

Alan hiccups as Scott ruffles his hair, gets to his feet. Contrary to what John (and apparently, Virgil and potentially, Gordon) seem to think, he _is_ capable of being rational, and the last thing Alan needs is anyone to make him feel worse. "You did good today," Scott tells him, honestly. "I'll have a word with John, he's way outta line. Go take a shower, Al, or just wash your face. It's okay. You're all right."

Whether or not Alan's all right is something Gordon's going to need to handle, because Scott resumes his course back to the lounge, and if he'd been hopeful to sit down and have a civil discussion with John before now, this hope has been dashed by the visceral desire to tear his brother's face off.

Scott expects to see John at their father's desk, having called Alan up on the carpet as he has. He expects his brother to be expecting _him_ , expects that the thunder of his footsteps in the corridor would have been enough warning. Instead, John's sitting in what's usually Gordon's place, the mustard yellow couch beside the little statue of Shiva, the Destroyer. There's a holopad on his lap, open to a display of the same mission log Alan had mentioned. He's changed out of his uniform—obviously, it's been hours since he got home. He doesn't _look_ as though he's just reduced the baby of the family into sobbing, ugly tears, but then, that's just John for you. Scott's fists clench and he feels his teeth grate against each other, snarling, "Were you just in the mood to behave like a jackass, or is there some other reason you're home?"

John doesn't look up, continues to read what's on the screen in front of him, making notes as he does. He finishes whatever thought he's having before he answers, "I'm here because apparently I have to be."

"Making Alan cry is a big item on your to-do list now?" Scott crosses the room to put himself in his brother's field of view, demands attention. "If you've got a problem with me—"

"There's no 'if' necessary at the front of that statement."

Scott's nostrils flare, the breath huffs out of him, and John's a red flag in front of a bull. "Well, you don't fucking take it out on _Alan_!"

"I'm _not_."

"Bullshit. You're being a petty son of a bitch and trying to get at _me_ through him, because he's got nothing to do with—"

If it was a rise Scott was after, he gets it, because John's eyes flash up to meet his, and apparently he's not as cool as he seems, because the display in his lap slams onto the tabletop beside him. "This _is_ about Alan. This sure as hell isn't about _you_ , because I've given the fuck up where _you're_ concerned. As far as I can tell, it's too late for _you_ to learn any better, but Alan's—I've got a responsibility to Alan, because it's one _you_ can't fulfill."

Scott rolls his eyes, folds his arms, and just keeps closing himself off. "Christ, I won't do it again!Okay? The comms thing? I've learned my damn lesson, you've pitched your little fit, and you made your damn point. Why you think you've gotta blow this all outta proportion is beyond me—"

John gets up and Scott's ready to rock back on his heels, brace his feet and _really_ get into it, but instead of what Scott expects, John just brushes past him, makes to walk away. Where he thinks he's going, Scott doesn't know, but he's not going to get far. Scott snags his brother's shoulder, jerks him around. "We're not done," he growls.

"No, _you're_ not done. _I_ am. I don't think you've heard a single damn thing I've said, and if you don't care enough to listen—" John pulls away from Scott's hand, and if there's anger in him, it's less evident than the blankly hopeless way he shrugs. "I told Virgil I wouldn't do anything drastic."

"Alan hasn't cried in _years_ , and you think you haven't done anything _drastic_ ," Scott snaps back, determined not to let his brother walk away. "You owe him a damn apology, at least, for the way you made him feel about today. It went fine. We did our job. _You_ don't get to make him feel like shit, because we didn't do it to your exacting specifications."

It's no longer a question of _if_ John's angry, because it's abruptly clear that he just _isn't_. This, once again, isn't what Scott expects. "I don't care how he feels. If I can't get through to _you_ , then I need to get through to _him_. There are things he needs to know he _can't_ do, not even if you tell him to. Not even if it's instinct. It's—God, Scott. I don't _want_ to fight about this. There's no damn point, and I can't—if—fuck. If I'm not getting through to you, then I _have_ to move on."

"Move on," Scott echoes, on the backfoot. "Move on to what; what the hell do you mean?"

John's visibly uncomfortable with the question and he shrugs, looks away. "I don't know. Don't ask me, I can't answer that. Forget I said it. I don't—have a clear answer," he finishes lamely.

"You're not going to threaten to _quit_ ," Scott accuses, jumping to the obvious conclusion. "Because of _one_ bad day—"

"Because _you_ think it was only _one_ bad day," John corrects, and steps away, retreats up the stairs out of the lounge proper. Definitely not angry. A little haunted, a little hunted, and suddenly looking trapped by something, though he's got a clear path to the stairs. "I need to talk to Virgil," he mutters, as though Scott's not right there to hear him.

Scott feels his face flush, still affronted that the two brothers he trusts most have apparently been in conference behind his back. "You might have the damn decency to talk to _me_."

"I _tried_." John exhales, hard, and continues to find excuses to put distance between them. This time he drifts over towards the wall where six portraits hang, and his fingers find the edges of Alan's. It's easy to forget just how awkward John can be in person. He always seems to have more limbs than he knows what to do with, how he can't keep his hands still, seems to feel like he's supposed to be treading water, only there isn't any water. "I don't know if I know _how_ anymore. I don't know if I've let something slip somewhere along the line, that a day like today could even _happen_. I don't know if I've let you down, and I can't—god. I don't know. I need to figure this out."

Scott sort of wishes John were still angry, or at least, that he was still the sort of angry that was easy to brush off, easy to remain cool and calm and superior in the face of. Because while it's true that John's almost never angry, the deeper truth—the one that only Scott might be aware of—is that John's only ever angry when he's been scared.

There's a long ago memory—not of John, or at least, not only of John—but of their mother. Of being outside a mall someplace (probably Kansas), and of the way a sheepish six-year-old John had been escorted back to their mother by what Scott had thought was a policeman, but probably had only been a security guard. Of their mother, angrier than Scott had ever seen her, descending on John to scoop him up, and tell him not how mad, but just how afraid she'd been.

The realization hits like a downpour, a shock of cold water that douses any hint of temper and has him fumbling for an olive branch as John turns and heads down the stairs. Scott takes a second to snap himself into action and go after him.


	6. petrichor

Détente.

Not quite a truce, not yet, but a cessation of hostilities. Whatever one might want to call it, neither of them are yelling any longer, so that's progress.

Cups of coffee and cream and sugar and cookies that won't be eaten. Scott's pulled it all together around his brother, who he'd found sitting at the kitchen table, to give them something to talk over. John's hair is still damp and he wears that scent of chlorine and citrusy bodywash that one usually associates with Gordon. The sun's gone down and the stars are out, and the light in the kitchen is halogen bright. Outside, the lights in the pool glimmer beneath the water's surface. Scott's pretending to be absorbed by this interplay of light and motion, to cover for the fact that he's sneaking sideways glances at his brother.

Sat across from Scott, who's upright and straight in his chair, John looks a little wilted and weary, hunched over his cup of coffee. He's wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved Henley, and he pushes the sleeve of this up and bares the skin for Scott to see.

 **No More Yelling.**

Gordon has helpfully written this on the inside of John's arm in black magic marker, not that John thinks he'll need the reminder. Truthfully, he's worn himself out with an unscheduled descent from orbit, the flare of high emotion, and then a mile's worth of what Gordon had helpfully informed him were passably _fast_ but terribly executed laps of the pool. He'd told him so over peanut butter sandwiches (three, with strawberry jelly on whole wheat toast) and a tall glass of milk, and a talk about what had been said (shouted, more accurately). John's not sure he made Gordon feel any better, but it had at least helped him put his own thoughts in order.

Still, he shows off the black block-letters as a sort of peace-offering crossed with a promise. There's a wry grin from Scott and a shrug. "Gordon can dish it out, but he's never been great at taking it," he observes, and sips at his coffee.

"Quoth Pot, re: Kettle." John disregards the roll of Scott's eyes and shakes his head. "No, he's just never liked fighting. Like… _real_ fights, like when he knows it's serious stuff. He used to hide under the bed with his fingers in his ears back when Mom and Dad would get into it."

Scott blinks. "Really? I don't remember that."

John's got a way of smiling without smiling, a way his eyes brighten slightly at the memory, though his expression doesn't change. "Well, usually it was _my_ bed, his was always stuffed solid with laundry."

Well, Scott remembers _that_ anyway. That hasn't actually changed, although at least it's mostly scuba gear these days. He remembers the sort of fights John's talking about, doesn't remember ever being that bothered by them. "Real fights, huh? _Serious_ stuff. Am I Mom or Dad in this scenario?"

"Dad. Mom always kicked his ass."

"You propose to kick my ass, then?"

John shrugs, sighs. "No. Maybe. I don't know. Honest, Scott, I don't know what to do with you. After today, I really just want to give up."

Much like his brother, this is a sentiment that's dropped out of the clear blue sky and landed smack in the middle of Scott's reality, blunt and objective. Still, Scott's told himself that he's going to try to listen, and at least attempt to get to the bottom of what's brought this on. "Well, I don't want you to do that. Look, clearly we've got a problem. I don't know what it is, but maybe I'm the idiot here. So enlighten me. Speak your piece, John, I'm listening."

"You're going to get my baby brother killed."

"John, for chrissakes—"

"Scott, I _swear_ , if you don't let me talk, then we're gonna have a fight that'll give Gordon something worth hiding from."

Scott shuts up.

As well as John's composed his thoughts, it still takes him a minute to figure out what to say, and he's hesitant, halting when he starts, "…you know I don't—you know I'm not supposed to work for you, right? None of us do. You're not our boss."

Scott blinks. He wouldn't have said _boss_ , but without their father—hell, even _with_ their father, he'd always been second in command. The impulse to just flatly disagree with whatever John says still exists, but he quashes it in favour of a cautious alternative. "—I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"I'm saying you're not supposed to be in charge. That's not your role, and it never _was_. It's not mine, either. I don't work for you, and you don't work for me. We're supposed to be partners." A pause, and John's gaze comes up from the cup of coffee he's been staring into. "And we work for _them_."

The _them_ in this equation obviously constitutes Virgil, Gordon, and Alan, but Scott's still not sure he follows. "Uh."

"God, I _know_ you're not this dumb."

"You wanna lay off with the personal insults?"

"No, I don't, because you're a fuckwit and you make me mad."

" _Hey_."

John taps a fingertip on the table, continues not to drink the cup of coffee, growing cold in front of him. He levels a finger at his elder brother, "I've earned a couple shots at you. You make my job hell, and it's past damn time you heard about it. You act like my input is _optional_. We used to be on an equal footing, but these days you treat me like your damn sidekick. It's supposed to be you and me, you with the live read on whatever the situation is, and me with everything else. We're supposed to inform one another, supposed to make these calls together."

"We _do_ ," Scott protests, remembering everything that John clearly isn't.

John's brought a tablet with him, and his fingers twitch towards it, like it's something he could pull in to shore up his argument. "We don't, actually. You'll go along with whatever I tell you, so long as it tracks with what you want to hear, with _your_ read on a scenario. Up until I have a different take on a situation than you do, and then you just…" John shrugs. "I can pull up mission data. I can chart your actions versus my recommendations, I can _show you_ all the times where I've known more than you have, and you've gone ahead and done it your way, regardless."

Scott eyes the tablet, doesn't believe it contains what John says it does. Doesn't like to think that his brother's been stacking up evidence against him, building an ironclad case about his own reliability. Carefully he makes an overture, attempts to repeat something he's said before, only now he says it with an eye towards diplomacy, "You're not a pilot, John. I don't mean it as a criticism, it's just a fact. Sometimes, it's just—it's an in-the-moment decision, and—"

There's an arch of John's eyebrow and his tone is cold, smooth as glass, "Where do you come away with the idea that being a pilot is somehow this holy-grail standard of knowing how to react to an evolving scenario? I'm an _astronaut_ , Scott, you think I'm not trained to comparable standards? What do you think I _do_? It's not just floating around in a space station all day, not any more than _you_ just bomb around the world in a rocket for a few hours at a time."

Now Scott shifts, uncomfortable. Admittedly the way he thinks of John's job is a little reductive, but he's not quite ready to cede the point. "I'm just saying, you've got a different—"

John interrupts again, and there's a warning in his voice, "I've got constant telemetry from all of you, while we're working. I've got a read on everything we need to react to, I've got the whole of a scenario at any given moment. I've got projections of what we need to be aware of before making any commitments, I've got everything you _can't_ know, in the damn moment. The things I try to tell you are things you _need_ to be told, because you won't know them otherwise. Gordon and Virgil still listen to me. You do—often enough that it's taken me this long to figure out that it's not just me—but only if it suits your own gut reactions. And now Alan's starting to argue back, to tune me out if he doesn't like what he's hearing. Scott, I don't know if anything could scare me as badly as that does."

Scott's gut reaction; the assessment he'd made of his brother, on instinct—is that his towering fury is rooted in fear. Meeting green eyes across the table, it's clear now that he'd been right about that, though it's cold comfort. Well, of course John's frightened. Out of the moment, seeing it all the way he does, of course he's got plenty more to react to, all those worst-case scenarios, all those improbabilities he guards against. Alan's really starting to come into his own, piloting Thunderbird 3, and it only makes sense that John's starting to spend more time worrying about their baby brother. It's not Scott's fault that he knows better, knows that Alan's a _prodigious_ pilot, and on track to leave the rest of them in the dust. High above and separate, John just doesn't have the same experience that Scott does, when it comes to Alan. "You really don't need to be afraid for Al, John. He's…honest to god, he's something else. I wish Dad could see him now, could see how he's turning out. I've been flying since I was fourteen, and I've never come _close_ to what Al can do. His instincts are—"

Scott had only meant this to be reassuring. John's not reassured, and his voice is hard, cold, when he cuts in. "—not good enough. Worthless. Actively dangerous. Maybe raw gut-impulse is good enough for _just_ a pilot, but he's not _just_ a pilot, he's meant to be an astronaut. And I know _you_ can't understand it, but that means he's got to be _more_."

"Is that what you told him?" Scott can feel his own temper trying to claw it's way back up from his gut into his chest, so he squashes it down and sits on it. "Because you _kinda_ wrecked the poor kid, John. Kinda had him sobbing his guts out, because he thinks _you_ think he's a failure."

John's apparently unperturbed by tears and he shrugs in answer. "You think Dad never made me cry? He trained _me_ , too. You were sixteen and getting your pilot's license, I was fourteen and trying out old NASA training sims. You want to talk about feeling like a failure, try simulating your own horrific death because you misremembered the protocols for the airlock. Try it over and over and over again 'til you get it right, and then learn the next thing. There was never any ambiguity about what was at stake. _That's_ what he needs to go through. I'm not saying he isn't talented, I'm not saying he's not a hell of a pilot. I _am_ saying he's shaping up to be a _terrible_ astronaut. There's no such thing as a terrible astronaut. A terrible astronaut is a _dead_ astronaut."

Scott's been ready to get defensive on Alan's behalf, but instead his skin prickles and crawls at his brother's bluntness. The way John can just drop the idea of their youngest brother, the dead astronaut, into a conversation, like it's nothing at all. "Jesus, John."

Except maybe the dead astronaut comment has rattled John more than it seemed to, even if he's the one who made it, because now there's emotion in his voice and for the first time, a genuine appeal. "Scott, I'm not saying it for shock value. _Please_ listen to me. You were just trying to get at me when you said it, but I _do_ need to be the one who trains Alan. You need to stop and I need to start to take him in hand now, to _really_ get down to the fundamentals, like what Dad did when it was me. He's gotta start to learn the way past his instincts, he _needs_ to know better than to trust his gut impulses, because his impulses are faulty and flawed and evolved out of a soupy prehistoric mess of raw animal _id_ —that doesn't account for zero-g and rocket science and highly complex mathematics—for the sort of low-earth-orbit problem that you need to _think_ about before you try and solve, or else you'll fuck it all up and kill yourself."

"Is it really that bad?"

John shrugs. "I put us into emergency downtime to drop out of orbit and scream at you. It's not great."

Scott mirrors his brother, awkward and sheepish. Tired, too, as they both are, though his cup of coffee has started to give him a jittery edge. John still hasn't touched his, slouching over the table in his rolled up shirtsleeves. Tentatively, Scott starts to run a white flag up above the dwindling conversation. "I really did figure you were just getting stressed out. I'm sorry I tried to minimize the whole thing. You just…you never lose your temper."

"Yeah, I know. Wasn't part of the plan."

It's not an apology, but then, Scott doesn't really expect one. His cup of coffee is down to the dregs, black sludge in the bottom of a white mug. After a long stretch of silence, he questions, "D'you really think I'm a fuckwit?"

John's got a not-laugh to go with his not-smile, a sort of soft huff and a roll of his eyes. "Sometimes, yeah. Yes. Oh, man, yeah. No, actually, sometimes you're so stupid I want to put my helmet on, stick my head out the airlock, and scream until my lungs burst."

Scott knows John well enough to know when he's starting to poke fun, trying to lighten the mood in his occasionally misguided way. "Great. Thanks."

"Screw around in space again, though, and I _am_ gonna get your license revoked."

"Yeah, I got it, John."

"Actually, if you want to take my advice and recertify early, I can take you through a list of everything you do wrong. I have a list. It's itemized."

"Mmm."

"With sub-headings."

" _Mmhm_."

"There's an appendix."

"All _right_ , John."

John nods sagely. "I'll email it to you."

Scott can't help a chuckle at this. There's still a lot they're going to need to get into, about Alan especially. A little bit about Scott, too. But the air's been cleared, and there's no longer electric fury crackling between them. The storm's passed, and there's just the bare, clean feeling of the silence that falls afterward. At least the ground's been softened, so what lies underneath can start to break upward through the surface.

It seems a shame to waste such a promising new silence, such a perfect place for a fresh start between them.

They both need to get some sleep, but neither of them seem to want to leave the table. Instead, they keep talking. Small talk, at first. With everything that's been said, neither Scott nor John quite seem to want to leave things on such a dark and ominous note. Instead cups of coffee get refreshed, the cookies continue to go ignored, and talk turns towards partnership, brotherhood. Mom, Dad, and the way they'd been a team, and the ways they both need to learn from that.

If either of them notice the way there are three shadows on the staircase, neither of them says.


	7. epilogue - sprouts

Gordon's propped himself up against Alan's back, snoring. Virgil's sitting two steps above, thumbing his way through probably the thousandth game of Tetris since they all first clustered together on the stairs. There's nothing but silence from the kitchen below, and from the angle Alan's managed, he can see John drowsing with his head in his arms, folded on the tabletop, while Scott flicks idly through some sort of documentation, projected off the screen of the tablet between them.

It's dawn and through the window, there's bright yellow sunshine glittering off the surface of the pool. Alan's cramped and sore and wants to stretch, but the slightest movement seems like it might dislodge Gordon, and he's a heavy enough sleeper that he'll topple down the stairs and give himself a concussion sooner than he'll wake up.

So he stays put, still and stiff and aching and feeling heavy with the weight of everything he's heard said. Wasn't supposed to listen in, until Gordon had come to catch him at it. Instead of telling the youngest off for eavesdropping, the blond had just sighed, lowered himself to sit on the stairs with a groan, and hadn't looked surprised when Virgil had come tiptoeing down in his stocking feet to join his younger brothers on the stairs.

"Virg?" Alan says softly, still worried about waking Gordon. "Are we…is…is everything gonna be okay?"

A big, heavy hand ruffles Alan's hair in answer and there's a soft chuckle. "Yeah, Al. Nothing that hasn't needed saying for a while. We're all right."

"Does being all right usually take so much fighting?" Even between the three of them, Alan thinks the conversation was really only half-heard. His name had come up a lot, and Gordon had put an arm protectively around his shoulders and kept up a running commentary of caveats and reasons why none of it was Alan's fault.

"Dunno. Mom and Dad went at it like cats and dogs, though, and _they_ were always all right. I think it's a good sign, Al. Don't stress. You okay?"

He needs to think about it for a minute. But in the light of morning, it's all a lot less dire than it was, and the scene below them is so calm and peaceful—he'd have to reach for it, if he wanted to find things to worry about, right this second. "Yeah. Uh. Yeah, I am. You?"

Virgil nods, smiles, loses his game. He hands the little console he's been playing with over to Alan, taps the high score up in the corner. "I'm fine, Al. This kinda thing doesn't rattle me like it rattles Gordon."

Alan shrugs carefully and there's a soft, snuffling sigh over his shoulder. "Is _Gordon_ okay?"

"Yeah. It's just Gordon's a lover, not a fighter."

"Yesterday, Gordon put me in a headlock and tried to suffocate me with his armpit."

"Because he _loves_ you."

Alan screws up his face and wrinkles his nose at the memory, and then gives a vengeful shuffle of his shoulders, to tip the brother between them off balance and down the stairs.

Virgil's a bit too quick, easily extending a leg and hooking an ankle around Gordon's torso, catching him even as he tips sideways, starts awake with a bleary yelp. "Whzzt? Whm. Lemme go, Virg. Oww. Friggin'. Ow, _hell_. Feel like I slept on a staircase all night."

"Dick move, Al." This is Scott from the kitchen table. He's been watching, no telling for how long, but he's got his chin cradled in his hand and a grin beneath the dark circles under his eye, watching the younger three. "Hungry?" he asks the general assembly, and flicks John in the ear, gets a grunt and a middle-finger in answer. "C'mon, starshine. Go get coffee on, it's your turn."

"Who's cooking?" Virgil asks, standing and stretching. Below him, Gordon's yawning and muttering, grumbling about his sciatic nerves. Alan's buried himself in a game of Tetris, still a little spooked, a little shy about addressing the elder two.

"Sounds like you just volunteered."

"I only do waffles."

"No one's gonna complain about waffles."

"John's gonna complain about waffles," Gordon predicts, pulling his arm across his chest and stretching his shoulders, as Virgil steps around him, jogs down the stairs into the kitchen.

John sits up properly, rubs his eyes. "I don't _complain_ , I just prefer pancakes."

"Yeah. We know. 'Cuz you tell everybody. At length. About why you hate waffles."

"I don't _hate_ waffles. I just think—"

"Coffee, John," Scott orders, and snaps his fingers. "Virgil, waffles. Gordon—"

"I'm gonna lie on the floor for a while; if someone lighter than Virgil wants to stand on my rhomboids for a minute, I'll owe 'em one."

"Gordon, floor. Alan—"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll stand on him in a sec."

"Nah. Al, c'mere."

Everything had _sounded_ okay, right up until that moment. But now Scott's leaning on the kitchen island, watching John make coffee, and he's crooked a beckoning finger in Alan's direction. Alan debates lying about the fact that he's almost through the level, but the problem with having older brothers versus parents is that they know about the pause button. He's not having a great run anyway, so he flicks the console off, trudges down the stairs. He plants a foot in the middle of Gordon's back and bounces off of him for good measure (" _Shoes_ , Al! Jesus!") and then meanders into the kitchen proper, pulls up a seat at the edge of the island.

Scott's looking at him, John isn't, and Virgil's cracking eggs into a bowl at the other end of the room. Gordon's still swearing into the poured concrete floor. The unspoken weight of A Talk hangs in the air, waiting to happen, and Alan's kicking the toes of his sneakers softly against the side of the island. He doesn't want to speak first, hopes he won't have to, and reliably, Scott comes through.

"Some stuff's gonna change a bit, Al."

Alan nods.

"Not gonna be too drastic, nothing we won't all pull through together. Nothing that's not...the way it should've been from the beginning. Just gonna start crossing the t's, dotting the i's a bit more carefully, especially where you and your training are concerned."

"Yup."

The phrase _dead astronaut_ rings in Alan's ears, but he pretends it isn't, even as Scott's hand finds his shoulder, gives it a squeeze. "So, hey. Meet the new boss, bit more of a hardass than the old boss."

This gets John to look up from layering coarsely ground coffee carefully into a sleek French press, arching an eyebrow as he corrects, "More like meet the new boss, better technically qualified than the old boss."

"Meet the new boss, unbearable pedant compared to the old boss."

"Oh, hell with you." Boiling water pours from the kettle from higher than it probably needs to, but John's a bit of a show off. The dark, heady scent of ground Arabica coffee rises in the air. The dark line of the liquid level in the carafe rises past two, four, servings and John pauses, then gestures with the half-tilted kettle, fixing the youngest with a green-eyed stare. "Coffee, Alan?"

Scott clears his throat. "He doesn't dri-"

"Alan?"

 _Meet the new boss._ "Yeah, sure."

"...doesn't drink coffee. Takes six sugars and more cream than java, and drinks sweet, _lukewarm_ white death," Scott mutters, but with a grin at John. "Sounds like someone I know."

John just pours the rest of the water and slots the lid onto the press, chilly and aloof and rounding out the fifth in a set of five orders, "Scott, go stand on Gordon."

Scott's answer is a snappy salute, half-deferential, half-mocking. "You got it, chief."

You'd have to be sitting right between the two of them, have to know what you're looking at, to know just what sort of moment passes between John and Scott. It's not a handing off of responsibility, so much as it is a renewal of a partnership. Alan, sitting between them, has a curious ripple bubble up from the depths of his memory; of Mom, Dad, and the sort of moments of union that always went unsaid. And Alan can't help a grin of his own, at the five of them, all together, and all right after all.


End file.
